CCHD's quarterly newsletter, Helping People Help Themselves, features a message from the Director, Ralph McCloud, and offers inspiring examples of the good work CCHD funds. 

US Bishops and CCHD Work to Address Mental Health Crisis

By Rhina Guidos

Helping People Help Themselves, Issue 1, 2024

In October 2023, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) announced a campaign focusing on mental health in response to rising levels of mental illness and related challenges that many in the country now face following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The USCCB said the efforts are “to raise awareness on this important issue, remove the stigma of mental illness and mental health challenges, and advocate that those who struggle receive help.”

Read more about how the USCCB campaign and the work of CCHD-supported organizations are raising awareness and responding to the mental health crisis in the newsletter.

Strangers No Longer: Parish Circles of Support Welcome Migrants in Michigan

By Rhina Guidos

Helping People Help Themselves, Issue 3, 2023

In 2017, US tensions arose over immigration policy, and laws echoing those public sentiments seemed to be taking hold. At the same time, a group of Catholics in Michigan listened to the words of Pope Francis.

Read more about how Strangers No Longer works at the parish level to welcome immigrants and nurture cooperation between parishioners, clergy, migrants, and public officials on issues ranging from access to vital health care and educational resources to state-issued identification cards and driver's licenses for migrants in the newsletter.
 

Solidarity and Success: Five Years of "Recognizing the Stranger"

By Rhina Guidos

Helping People Help Themselves, Issue 2, 2023

They come from the ranks of the poor, migrants, and dispossessed, and they have learned to help those like themselves. Even a pandemic did not stop Recognizing the Stranger. This national program, now in its fifth year, emerged from a partnership between the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) and community organizers from the West/Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF).

Read more about this effort to help communities foster understanding between immigrant and non-immigrant neighbors as they work to seek solutions to the unique challenges facing immigrants in the newsletter.

 

Building a Land of Opportunity: Four Bands Community Fund

By: Rhina Guidos

Helping People Help Themselves, Issue 1, 2023

The pristine beauty of the plains that surround the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation is hard to match. The beauty is due in part to its remote South Dakota location, which is a blessing and sometimes a disadvantage for the 8,000 or so residents who call it home.

Read more about how the Four Bands Community Fund is helping Indigenous residents of the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation become small business owners who create jobs and provide goods and services to their community in the newsletter.

 

Renewing the Face of the Earth: Organizing for Sustainability and Economic Health on the Western Plains

By: Beth Griffin

Helping People Help Themselves, Issue 4, 2022

Families in the western Plains states have traditionally sustained themselves and their communities through farming and ranching. Over the last 50 years, however, these critical activities have been eclipsed by largescale fossil fuel extraction and huge industrialized agricultural operations.

Read more about how the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) brings CCHD's vision of solidarity, sustainability, and grassroots cooperation to communities in the northern plains and Rocky Mountain west in the newsletter.


 

Past issues of Helping People Help Themselves
 

Power to the People: Together New Orleans Provides Refuge from Disasters
Helping People Help Themselves, Issue 3, 2022

Community Land Trusts: A Winning Model for Affordable Homeownership
Helping People Help Themselves, Issue 2, 2022

Living Synodality: Walking with Those on the Margins
Helping People Help Themselves, Issue 1, 2022

From Words to Action: CCHD-Funded Groups Bring Laudato Si' to Life
Helping People Help Themselves, Issue 4, 2021

Catholic Labor Network: Defending Workers During and Beyond the Pandemic
Helping People Help Themselves, Issue 3, 2021

CCHD Provides Grants to Fund a Massachusetts Eviction Moratorium
Helping People Help Themselves, Issue 2, 2021

The Post-Pandemic Path Ahead
Helping People Help Themselves, Issue 1, 2021

Diocesan Directors: Building Relationships
Helping People Help Themselves, Issue 4, 2020

Funded Groups Respond to COVID Pandemic
Helping People Help Themselves, Issue 3, 2020

ARISE Adelante empowers women, youth, and children in immigrant colonias
Helping People Help Themselves, Issue 2, 2020

PREPARES gives families what social service cannot
Helping People Help Themselves, Issue 1, 2020

If you would like to receive quarterly issues of Helping People Help Themselves, please e-mail @email with your name
and mailing address.